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A construction crew cut off much of south Santa Clara County from the world today as ATMs, gas pumps and phones stopped working. (Published Monday, March 5, 2012)

Updated at 5:58 PM PDT on Monday, Mar 5, 2012

UPDATE: Verizon reported at 4:20 p.m. that the severed line in Morgan Hill has been repaired and all phone and internet lines are now working again.

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A phone line problem is making for big headaches in south Santa Clara County Monday.

Grocery stores aren't able to process debit cards, gas stations can't process self-service fuel, and ATMs aren't able to spit out cash. Some land line phones weren't working either, including the one at the Morgan Hill police department.

The problem is centered around a fiber line. Officials at Verizon did not have specifics on the source of the problem, but they told NBC Bay Area that it will take until at least 5 p.m. Monday to fix it.

NBC Bay Area's Kris Sanchez found the source of the problem. Sanchez took the photo at the top of this article on Monterey Road in Morgan Hill. A person with Morgan Hill public works told her that the outage was related to the pictured Butterfield Boulevard expansion project.

Verizon could not confirm how many customers were impacted by the outage.

If you were impacted by the outage, your ATM and debit transations simply wouldn't go through. Incoming calls received busy signals.

The work to patch the line was underway by Monday afternoon, but it was not clear exactly how long it would take to repair.

The Morgan Hill police said in a press release issued at 3:30 p.m. that the community's ability to call 911 was not impacted by the outage. Sgt. Troy Hoefling said there were no reports of any missed or lost calls to their 911 center.